Got a couple of classics last night, we were one short for a sunday night guild fun run on alts in SM TFB so we advertise in fleet chat for one more stating that we were doing a group finder for the extra comms, sentinel we pick up is pretty decent and we breezed through the op, fun was had, derps and time wasted were zero. We down operator 9, sent had his weekly done so he just leaves. Group finder bugs and we had to reform and reset the phase when we try to que for a replacement, anyways we get a replacement but our healer derped and had his que on dps so we pick up a new healer. Gear was a mix of level 40 blues, 50 bits and pieces and he had less health than a companion, we give the guy a try but he dies on trash heading to kephess, releases and sits on Voss not answering our questions of whether he's coming back or not so we vote kick him and que again. He's replaced by a dps.. we clear the trash to kephess and start the kephess fight when it pops up in guild chat 'He has a full tank set on..'. Anyways we down Kephess easily enough but realise dps is lacking so we get this guy to tank and one of our tanks respecs dps and throws his dps gear on. Asked him twice if he knew the fight and if he needed a strat and get assured he's tanked it many, many times so we start the fight.. straight away he's standing back from the tentacle using full auto, I'm yelling in TS to get in nice and close to it, dps is grabbing agro, I'm healing and grabbing agro, this guy is just saying calmly we're pulling agro whenever his taunt finishes.. We get the tenatcles down with dps and myself tanking them and get onto the 2nd phase, our guildie tank gets the boss and we're reminding this guy over and over to taunt when he see's scream, which he does fine.. but everytime he gets spat on and the other tank picks up the boss he stands in the spit and we're spam healing the guy to keep him up.. he does this the entire fight, only replying to our suggestion of moving out of the spit and to another platform with 'Huh?'. In the end its too much and he dies just before we down the 3rd set of tentacles and our respecced tank shares taunting with our main tank, we win. Afterwards this guy actually complains! Says healers weren't healing him :/ Our ignore list continues to grow..

*bump* Looking at putting together another progression team for those interested.

Dark Hearts is an APAC raiding guild, our main focus being on Ops both fun and progression. Currently 5/5 HM TFB, 7/7 HM S and V and 1/1 16 HM GF with our main team. We also have 2 secondary teams for those wanting to get into progression, organise guild ops and fun runs and are starting to get into PvP of all levels and have an interest in expanding our progression into 16 man. We also use a DKP system on our operations. At the moment we are looking for experienced and reasonably geared raiders for progression, raid leaders for SM ops and possibly HM in the near future, and people generally interested in an active, mainly PvE focused guild. Our membership requirements are that you have TeamSpeak and come on at least 2 of our open fun run operations so we can get to know you, and you can get to know us. Dark Hearts is our website, feel free to message Starks or Antherix if you are interested in joining us

Dark Hearts is recruiting people who have their main focus on progression ops and high end PvE. We are a friendly and relaxed bunch who enjoy the most challenging content in the game. Currently we have 2 teams plus an alt group in HM TFB, the main team having cleared it, and we run and organise open operations for anyone with an interest on our non progression nights, plus fun runs at least once a week, with plans to start S and V very shortly in Hardmode making us the lead progression operations team for Republic side on Gav Daragon. What we are looking for in our members: A dedication to PvE content and being part of a team. A relaxed and laid back attitude, Dark Hearts is a stress free zone. A willingness to learn, accept advice as well as give it, to accept and give help. We use a DKP system on progression runs, this is non optional, we leave it up to our members if they want to be part of this or just join for our organised fun run operations which include S and V (sm) and TFB (sm). Tolerance of others still learning, a big part of our guild is training new members and bringing in others from other guilds with an interest in running with us. An understanding of game mechanics, gearing, skills and endgame content plus an ability to apply that knowledge. TeamSpeak is also non optional. If this sort of guild appeals to you contact Errol or Antherix in-game by mail or chat

Free to play is not a solution, not with the current restrictions on F2P accounts, come on Bioware.. you seriously think giving us more players on restricted accounts is going to solve our problems? No, its not, those restrictions will create a division in the community of those that subscribe, those that F2P and pay to do the higher content on and off again basis and those that are just pure F2P. What we need is more dedicated and subscribed players, people who want to join progression ops, ranked wz's, a large chunk of our servers population is missing out on this content simply because of numbers. I feel Nova's pain, as the founder of the new effort to get people into harder content (Hard CoR progression ops) the past 2 weeks I have struggled getting people to make up balanced and capable teams. Not because noone is interested but simply the lack of population means we have very little variety. Not just that but if one person can't make it or dosen't turn up then one of the 3 teams is screwed. How is that going to be fixed by F2P? Honestly I'd have to think hard about relying on someone who often isn't able to do ops on a regular basis because his/her account is seriously restricted. 'Sorry, gonna have to skip the ops starting in 10 minutes because my credit card got declined' pfft. If your serious about helping APAC servers then make the restrictions less hard Bioware, we don't NEED restricted players, we need players that will be able to make the same contributions to the server as the subscribers. We're doing our part, Visz Alliance, Dawn, CoR, Sun Guard, all the major guilds on the Gav are jumping in to try and bolster moral and get stuff happening, how about helping us out a bit? I really suggest one of your developers go read the Gav Daragon forums http://gav-daragon.enjin.com/home and see the effort your dedicated subscribers are putting in to make sure Gav dosen't die, then get back to us.

Thankyou for finally giving APAC servers a response to their population issues, its been a long time coming, but we're glad we finally know.

Heard the term main healer used before, usually to indicate that one healer (the main) was very geared, experienced and usually given the job of healing the main tank as well as dps in certain fights or the lesser geared tank in fights with 2 bosses like Zorn and Toth. Was simply a practical title in groups that haven't done much together and have new players along for the run. Like a few weeks ago, we had a newish healer and my very geared sage, plus a new tank and a geared tank, on Zorn and Toth I got to heal the new tank and the new healer got the geared (main) tank. As far as I'm concerned the title main healer dosen't mean you get the best job lol, just that more is expected, sometimes the impossible if your in a bad ops. As for main dps.. dunno, I suppose that could indicate say a melee dps who is 100% on the boss while others with ae burn down adds and switch targets..

I'll pass on the message, CoR will definetly be there.

Ignore this person, HM ops you need more than recruit or your just being carried, even SM ops I'd never invite someone unless they could at least show me they have an interest in being a team player and have a pve set even if its all Tionese/crafted mix. Theres a lot of nice people and guilds around, I'd suggest you spend half hour looking for them, maybe asking in general chat if theres any friendly PVE guilds looking for members who would be willing to show a new player the ropes. Post your servers name, if your on my server we can get you the help you need, even help you gear up for ops if your interested, we have 1 or 2 weekly runs to introduce people into them, and regular HM flashpoint runs to teach the game mechanics as well as get gear.

A few simple rules solves all drama: Roll need if needed for main spec Ask if anyone minds if you want to roll need for off spec or companions Greed if you can't use Everyone roll need on rare vanity items Master loot in ops or just don't bother with that group If a newbie rolls need on something they shouldn't have tell them what they did wrong, if they do it again /ignore so you never get them in another pug. Met a lot of people who play the 'I'm a newb card' a few too many times. These are the rules of single server grouping to make sure everyone is happy and people get invited back to future ops/groups. WoW installed in people the 'dosen't matter, its a pug' attitude with cross server grouping and people forgot that pre-cross server those were the loot rules and anyone who didn't follow them soon got a bad reputation and never invited to anything ever again.

I totally agree HM LI was never worth doing in a pug group, even now its not worth it. I totally love running LI, its even been said by friends that I've probably ran it more than anyone else on our server (I heal it on 2 healers, tank it on my shadow and dps it on my sentinel). Yet I'd never do it as part of a GF random, I like at least 1 other person along who understands the mechanics, if not 2, plus teamspeak. As for the nerfs.. I miss old HM LI, too much is easy mode nowadays in MMO's.

I find it useful to just go with the flow of whoever your playing with and change to the circumstances, as do my friends, then relax and have fun like we do. Its a running joke between a friend and me that my healers and sentinel are her off tank in HM FP's, but in ops she guards highest threat, which is usually my sentinel because even though she's an awesome tank and I try my hardest to keep my threat level down by using de-agro's, spamming 1 on tank swaps and so on, somedays I get in one crit too many and end up tanking. Thats no fault of the tank, I've pulled agro off our servers best tank when he's asked for a burn on pull to beat an enrage timer, you simply can't help it sometimes. Change guard to reflect the situation, theres no reason it should always be on one person, its not like it has a 2 hour cooldown. Oh, and if your dps is being extremely silly without your consent, have a quiet word with them, most of the time you'll find they reply with 'oh, ok, sure' when you tell them to calm down a bit. Calling them out on TS or in chat can be embarrassing if they're not doing it on purpose and have the opposite effect with them getting defensive.

You know, after getting the news that 2 more of our most valued friends and fellow players are leaving because of population problems, after a week of hearing about GW2 being the place to be from others, and starting to see our progression groups slowly eroding to the point where it may become extinct on Gav.. Well.. had this post I prepared to once again plead with Bioware to give us an answer, but in the end i don't care anymore. I'll keep playing because I enjoy the friendships I have on Gav Daragon, but I will say this much, Bioware/EA, which pretty much describes your customer service and dedication to your subscribers, you suck and fail at both. This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. T.S. Elliot

Its really disheartening that they haven't given us any update since the message that they're looking into it, there is a brightside though guys, at least we're pulling together as a community to organise things. Bit worried about how much longer we can do it though.. heard a lot of the organisers and regular players saying how tired they've been lately both mentally and physically. Knocked back an ops invite myself last night because I was feeling more than a little drained, and as you guys know by now I never turn down an ops, especially one to help gear up others. Guild leaders have been fantastic to, overcoming differences to get stuff done like the creation of chat channels for multi guild communication, our multi guild effort to run TFB as soon as it was released, our servers 2nd downing of the Nightmare Pilgrim on Sunday with some of our servers best players from varying guilds. Just mentioning all this in the hope a Dev will actually read it and take note that we're doing our best to keep people playing and happy but we can't do it forever, and a message updating us that steps are being taken would boost morale and encourage us to keep trying. Plus maybe help keep the people here who think maybe GW2 or WoW is a solution that would involve less effort. More than a bit worried about the day when the most stubborn players of Gav decide we're not getting our rewards for the amount of effort we put in and just leave since we honestly can't replace them, and a lack of newer players means there will be noone to rise up and eventually fill their shoes.

Agreed, I group with some awesome tanks and healers but still get agro, I don't blame them if I die, I blame myself for not being fast enough on my defensives and force camo or nuking a bit too hard too soon. With a bit of practice you can survive very easily as a Sentinel, couple Kephess fights that have gone badly I've been among the last to die or left standing. Just remember, move out of stuff that may kill you, look before you jump in, use defensives and force camo, go behind the boss to avoid cleaves and such, do everything you can to make sure your healer isn't too stressed. Sentinel dps is high for a reason, so we can waste a few moments assessing a situation, move out of stuff and generally survive.

Great guides, thankyou. Our servers didn't come up till 1AM but a few of us were crazy enough to stay up and give SM TFB a try using your guides, 2 bosses downed first attempt before we decided it was bedtime. Just wanted to add that SM 1st boss does do the random DoT on people, but dosen't drop the yellow circles when its cleansed

Thanks all, looks like I'm off to do some pvp then lol.

I'm a cookie cutter watchman spec, so far I've found heaps of info on gear, rotations, etc and think I'm doing ok. But the one thing where all the info seems outdated or incomplete is what relics are best for a watchman sentinel? Atm I'm using a Rakata power clicky and a matrix cube, I have enough comms to get campaign relics but thought I'd ask here first which ones are best in slot.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5154463#post5154463 Is the main thread about server mergers Hesseltii. I can totally back you up on the Imperial side being dead to, I have a 50 BH that i only use to craft on Imp side, most days when I switch to her I barely see anyone on Imperial fleet, even when theres 20 or more on Rep. Few weeks ago I logged on and there were 4 or 5 people on a Friday (late afternoon) and actually got asked to fill a HM EV dps spot... I pointed out I was only in recruit and got told it was ok, they'd carry me. Seriously, a Friday afternoon and they were willing to settle for a dps that their main healer could probably have beaten on SWMonitor? In comparison I was on a US super server yesterday, 224 people on fleet, people asking in chat for a geared tank who knew the fights for HM EC, a fully BH/Rak rdps looking for Ni/HM KP.. various other dps and assorted classes looking for other ops.

Years ago I was in a job where customer service was important, even after we were closed the boss would make me answer the phone and apologise for being closed.. even at 4am in a state where most places were shut at 12am back then. The reason behind this was to show our customers they were important to us even if we couldn't help them at the time. You see Bioware, that is customer service, showing your customers they are important by muttering a few pleasant and friendly words, even if they're not what they want to hear. For the most part we've been respectful of Bioware, we have all expressed our desire to keep playing, if we didn't love this game and our community why would we even be posting about this? I understand we're a minority population but every customer is important, and each customer has friends and family who could possibly be your future customers. All we want is an answer posted so we can decide if we want to leave SWTOR, stay or re-roll. Nothing is achieved by ignoring us and you have a lot to gain by giving a simple answer whether it be 'We're aware of this issue and nothing is planned' or 'Working on it guys, hold tight'.

Would be nice to know if this is planned for Oceanic servers in the near future.

This.. totally agree! Also those friends who aren't currently playing are a good reason for merger rather than opening transfers, I know a few that had to take a break of an unspecified period of time due to RL concerns, I'd hate to see them come back to find empty guilds and friends lists and decide to quit for good because Gav would be a ghost town.

Couple more things I wanted to add, I have a 50 Bounty Hunter, was just last week I logged on to do some crafting and got /t'ed by 2 Imperials needing replacement dps for EV. I laughed and told them sorry but my BH was a crafter character in shiny recruit and they'd be better off finding someone with better gear.. but they begged me to come, offering to carry me through it. There was only 5 people on Imp fleet, them and me the only 50's on a Friday! Many times I've logged onto that character and Imp fleet has been dead, Rep fleet is low population, but Imperial side is a ghost town. I've also posted on SWTOR Twitter and Facebook about this thread, post there as well guys and maybe we can get Biowares attention!

I'm not a PvPer on Gav, but I am into PvE content in a big way, regularly running ops as part of an alliance of guilds. Part of what the alliance does is help new players gear up and teach them the ropes so to speak, every Friday and Weds there are SM ops runs, Saturday is HM runs and SM EC. The sad thing is a lot of these runs we end up with maybe 2 new people along.. and have to fill out the ranks with vets, not because of no interest but simply lack of people. If it wasn't for some of us having multiple characters to contribute to these runs and fill any missing roles theres some nights they wouldn't go at all. As for progression content.. theres just too few of us, getting people for Pilgrim sometimes takes longer than actually fighting him. And we're not just doing it as 1 guild, but several combining members.. if several guilds can't pull this off then surely that says our regular player base is way too low. Then theres regular HM FP's.. group finder hardly ever pops, we search the server for people to get a group together and again a lot of us play multiple roles just to get them done. And as for GF sub 50, I've had it up from 10 saturday morning till 11pm that night and had 1 group that disbanded as soon as it formed. Compare that to playing on a US server.. I have a low level character on one where as soon as you hit that que button it pops. We need a merger, and a cross server pvp group finder for our pvp orientated guys. And as a side note, I've posted about this so many times before in these forums, do something about emergency maintenance, why not move it till 7am US for emergency maintenance so us Aussies don't end up losing some of our main raid nights.

Nope, not the end of the world for sure. Don't think you understood the reasons behind my post, it wasn't to complain about a personal grievance or mis-perceived injustice but an issue that effects a lot of people, including you. Personally I've made my plans for tonight, life goes on. Dosen't mean I'm not going to speak up on an issue because I feel its the right thing to do, if more Aussies spoke up instead of adopting the 'she'll be right mate' attitude then maybe everyone would be a bit happier. Nothing ever changes unless people make a stand and let their voices be heard. Come on Bioware, put your 2 cents in, us Aussies don't bite, in fact we may even agree with your side of things, but first you need to actually talk!